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Did anyone else’s college have a housing lottery? It was always kind of stressful, trying to figure out who was going to live with whom and how to best configure all your friends in the best location possible. Well, that is how I feel about figuring out hotel logistics for the wedding.
Ohhhhhhhh, college… (Le sigh.)
Here’s the problem: I grew up in the middle of nowhere.
By deciding to get married in the middle of nowhere (my hometown), I gave up the idea of having everyone stay in one central location. I then had to do some serious research on various ideas for lodging. The logistics have been pretty mind-boggling, to say the least. There have been several times in the past few months that I seriously wished I had opted to have the wedding at a place where everyone could stay.
After practically going cross-eyed trying to figure things out in my head, I finally sat down and made an Excel spreadsheet. I’m pretty worthless with Excel, so it’s a very basic spreadsheet using columns for various information, such as the guests’ names, addresses, etc. It’s been somewhat helpful but I’m still stressin’ over hotels versus bed and breakfasts, televisions in the room, discounts for the entire place, two-night minimums, and other fun details.
Right now, I have 6 different places where guests will be staying, including 4 bed and breakfasts near to the reception site, one nicer hotel about 30 minutes away, and a Ramada Inn about 20 minutes away. The list may end up consisting of 7 or 8 places by the time we get to the wedding.
Oh right, and there’s also transportation to and from all of these places. Ack!
Is anyone else getting married with tricky hotel logistics? How are you managing to make it all work?
Thankfully, we didn’t have too many OOT guests, so the hotel logistics weren’t too difficult. I do totally remember the college dorm lottery though! My sophomore year, we were friends with the people in charge of organizing it, so we were able to pick first of all the girls! It was awesome, we got the best room on our favorite hall in the coolest dorm!
I think in the same realm of getting married in the middle of nowhere and having everyone spread out getting married in big city poses a similar problem. TOO many places and often $$$! I’m definitely presenting our guests with lots of budget friendly options such as suggestion vacation rentals, B&Bs, hostels, budget but nice hotels. I’m still on the fence on whether we will do a hotel block….most of our guests are savvy enough to find good deals.
our venue has cabins that can sleep about half our guests, but it has a two night minimum. I’m going to have to figure out juggling guests who only want to stay friday night, guests who only want to stay saturday night, and those who will (hopefully) stay both.
We literally just completed blocking our rooms. It was a nightmare! We are staying in a tourist town with an overwhelming amount of options, butttt they almost all have two night minimums, which doesn’t make sense for a lot of our guests, or they are super expensive- even though we chose a date in the off season to lower the cost. We ended up with 4 different options. We figured the best way to go is variety. We have a very convenient high end hotel (across from the reception), 2 mid range across from the reception, and one with a great price and 1 night stays available down the street. It took a lot of phone calls, but we’re happy with the 4 we chose.
I’m having the hardest luck ever!!
I’m either “too early” to make blocks or the hotels are already booked because of a huge tennis tournament… i don’t know what i’m going to do.
That sounds frightening! Just keep in mind that while people will appreciate you blocking out hotel rooms for them, it’s not required. People are perfectly capable of finding their own way, and I’m betting some people will do that regardless. Good luck!
We got one block of rooms (a convention in Chicago that weekend is making hotel prices exorbanent) for mostly family. Everyone else is sort of left to their own devices… and because public trans and cabs are plentiful, we opted to not pay for transportation for all guests. my parents have generously offered a trolley for thewedding party and family. i’m hopeful that everyone will understand… you are much kinder than i am!!
I decided not to get married in my “hometown” (didn’t grow up there but my parents retired there) because of the lodging issues. It would have been beautiful and on the water, but the closest hotel was 40 minutes away! So we decided on DC and only offered one hotel option as we got a great rate ($100) for a Hilton and a free shuttle too and from the reception.
Dude! I’m in the same situation! The only hotel in town has 15 rooms. Total. 15 rooms, some of which do sleep 6 though. There is a B & B with 4 rooms. There’s also a campground with showers. The next nearest hotel is 50 minutes away along winding roads. The wedding spreadsheet literally ranks who gets priority for the hotel… sigh. But it’ll be awesome, right? (RIGHT?)
I have to thank the FMIL for taking care of this. Good luck, but remember that people will usually be able to figure something out.
Don’t stress out! It will all be okay…and honestly, if you plan on providing transportation to shuttle your guests to/from the wedding and reception then I would not worry at all…that way they won’t care if they are 30 minutes away or 10 if they are getting a ride.
99% of our guests stayed at the resort where we had our reception, but we shuttled everyone to/from the ceremony location and I am so glad we did!
I am with Mrs. Mouse! You should NOT be stressed over this! This the least of your worries.
You can block off 15 rooms at 2 locations (1 cheaper, 1 more posh, but both semi-close) and call it good! (Remember to release them too, the Embassy Suites we used need our credit card number to block them off and so I had to release them 4 weeks before the wedding or they’d charge us!)
Then, only those people that stay at your locations can get OOT bags and your shuttle will only have to make two stops, then I hope your stress is eliminated
- well, at least that’s what I did.
Good Luck -
Oh, don’t forget about vacation rentals - look and see if there are any of those … you’d be surprised where they pop up!
ahh, we had a housing lottery in college and I have the same lodging problem as you for the wedding. I even found one pretty reasonable priced motel about 10 minutes away with only 13 rooms but the owner won’t let us rent more than 5 because he wants to have some free for “regular” vacationers. We chose to get married after labor day to avoid the tourist problem but there still is no large hotel nearby or reasonable. Sometimes I wish I was just having a hotel wedding for hte ease! I can’t wait to see what you end up doing.
Good luck! We’re having a hotel reception partially for this very reason. We’re having open bar, and didn’t want to deal with OOT guests & travel logistics and things like that.
Good Luck! I hope your guests appreciate all the work you’re doing 
I spent a lot of time and effort to block of hotel rooms for the wedding and not a single person reserved a room. I’m pissed.
We were blessed to have a “housing coordinator” come with our venue, who our guests can call to make reservations with. She is trying to keep people who want to stay together in the same place in their price range. Unfortunately, a lot of guests are not taking advantage of this free service. Ugh, how will I get the welcome bags to them?!
We chose one main hotel and offered the rest on our wedding website. I was okay with letting them all pick their preferences in hotel.
We were litteraly married in the middle of nowhere too! I stressed for months about all the hotel blocks and trying to keep everyone together because we had rented a shuttle to take all the guests back and forth but in the end, everyone ended up at different places for different reasons but it all seemed to work out!
My biggest advice is just don’t stress, its nice to be so accomodating but in the end, people are going to get to the wedding no matter what and that’s really all that matters.
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Mrs. Trail Mix, New York Age and Occupation: 26, PE Teacher Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, MBA Student Engagement Date: March 2009 Wedding Date: June 2010 Venue: Tannery Pond at the Darrow School About Me: I'm a country girl who somehow found herself living in the Big Apple and loving every minute of it. I'm planning a rustic, country-chic wedding in my hometown in upstate New York and it's going to be a Party with a capital P. White wine, flea markets and running keep me happy and my friends, family and fiance are my world. I'm a little bit crafty, a little bit crazy but mostly just crazy in love.
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